I love the idea of painting the stringers black but the baseboards are exposed wood and are connected throughout the entire house (you can see the photo of where it connects into the hallway at the top. Would it look weird to keep the baseboards (which are on both the top and bottom of the wall-side of the stairs) bare and paint the actual stringers black (or white if I paint that wall white)??

@beth h. And yes, we have a lot of sanding in our future. The bottom three stairs are stained a similar color to the railing as well as the underside of the main portion of the stairs. You can see both stained and non-stained in the photos.

just do the stringers only and leave the baseboards. Or continue w/the black or white on the baseboards too. ( look at my last picture. they continued w/the dark color for the baseboards) the condition of the baseboard wood is kind of yucky as is, so unless you want to refinish all of that too, I'd paint it.

then for you slat panel wall in front of the stair landing, I'd give that a good cleaning, sanding and coat w/a good colored wood oil. something like Penofin. warm it up a bit and give it some life. that would nice w/the black stringers. do the same for the treads if you like. Penofin is a great product.

i'd also look into redoing the railing in a cable system. that would look cool w/the black and the wood

they continued w/the dark color for the baseboards)

is this what you were asking about? the baseboards could easily be done w/black here too.

@beth h. The baseboards definitely deserve a coat of something. That will be a project for another day (as they line every inch of floor, ceiling, and door in our 2300 sq ft home).

Interesting idea on the penofin! Those walls have been “pickled” 🤷‍♀️ in a light white wash. I was thinking about lightening them further to break up the wood on wood on wood look since our ceilings are also exposed wood.

Any thoughts on what material to replace that darn hallway carpet with?

what hall carpet? can't see a pic. what's under it? how much is there to replace ? (or are we just talking on the landing?

and to get beneath the pickling stain, you'll have to sand that paneling down to raw wood again.

depending on what colors you use and how the stairs look, I was thinking something like either one of these for the wood tone on the paneling

the bottom one would look nice trimmed out in black to match the stringers/baseboard

There’s about 50 sqft of it. Some kind of wood sub flooring under it (not hardwood). The bedrooms we can do whatever we want or can afford but stick on the hallway since you can see both floors when you stand at the top (not to mention trying to avoid an awkward stair transition) @beth h.

*stuck on. Love the light warm wood on the paneling!

well, I think it would easy, and cheap enough to get matching pine floor that would go w/the wood stairs, or downstairs flooring. that would probably look the best. I would not do laminate. (for your bedrooms, fine, but not the hallway).

my other choice would be a black slate tile. (or a porcelain that looks like slate)

Tilebar.

another thought, if you're switching out all of the railings in the future, then paint these black. it will look better (because you have so many wood finishes and wood types in that one space).

Or, paint the stairs black, white stringers, baseboard, black railing, pine hallway

Pine or slate was my inclination too. It’s crazy how hard the flooring shops seem to want to sell that lifeproof stuff- I wonder if there’s a huge mark up on it. Thanks for all your help, Beth! It’s huge to feel closer to a design direction :)

Also - agreed, I can’t wait to get some contrast going with the railings. I’m already buying decor that incorporates linear black lines in preparation 😬

slate is super cheap, and pine hardwood shouldn't be that much. I hate laminate, so I wouldn't do that.